


behind the yellow line

by goddesspharo



Category: Jurassic Park (Movies), Jurassic World (2015)
Genre: F/M, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-16
Updated: 2015-06-16
Packaged: 2018-04-04 16:17:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4144317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goddesspharo/pseuds/goddesspharo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Everyone is so focused on preparing for the hurricane that they miss a series of storms, each one longer than the last.</i>
</p><p>You don't get to where Claire has without having a hell of a good method of compartmentalizing<i> things that need to get done</i> from <i>things that don't have the luxury of happening</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	behind the yellow line

 

 

 

There is a certain expectation that Claire will fall apart afterwards, revert to the fetal position the moment they land on American soil and the reality of what has happened ( _what she has done_ ) settles into her bones. Everyone seems to be waiting for it like there are dinosaur eggshells all around her and no one wants to get too close for fear of disturbing this temporary peace. But you don't get to where Claire has without having a hell of a good method of compartmentalizing _things that need to get done_ from _things that don't have the luxury of happening_.

 

Everyone is so focused on preparing for the hurricane that they miss a series of storms, each one longer than the last.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

Let us be perfectly clear: Claire has always loved her nephews. She did not need a pterodactyl attack to come around on that. But prior to what has to be the worst vacation of their lives, she loved Zach and Gray in the theoretical way that a person loves her sister's children because they are family. She loved her sister unequivocally and, therefore, by the transitive property, she loved her nephews because they were half of her sister's genetic material.

 

However, prior to them coming to Jurassic World, Claire didn't know them as anything more than two kids who had her sister's kind eyes and penchant for guilt tripping and that she had last seen at Thanksgiving time when they were both still too young to go to a PG-13 movie without a chaperone and only knew that her job had something to do with amusement parks ("But not Disney because Disney is for people without any imagination, right, Aunt Claire?" Zach clarified proudly).

 

But there's something about almost getting your nephews eaten by an extinct species that really makes you appreciate their individuality as people separate from their parents. In a way, Karen got the family bonding experience she wanted when she sent them over (though Claire would never _ever_ tell her this, of course). So when she asks Gray how he's doing, she means it more than some perfunctory thing she'd ask the checkout girl at Target.

 

"Mom makes me talk to someone," Gray says with a shrug, briefly looking up from some racing game he's playing on his X-box. "Do you do that too, Aunt Claire?"

 

"Yeah. Sure I do," Claire says with a tight smile. "It's good to get things out."

 

Which she has no doubt is true. And technically she's not lying because she _did_ see a therapist once after they got back, a mandate from Masrani Corp to make sure she wasn't going to explode like a time bomb the moment they set up a press conference to talk about The Incident. Claire remembers going to see someone with so many degrees that they bled into a second line on the nameplate on his swanky office door and being told that she shouldn't expect her life to be the same as it was before. It was such a ridiculous thing to say because Claire had never been a victim before and she was certainly not going to start now _after_ she had proven herself to be a survivor. It's not like her life was suddenly going to be divided up into _Before Indominus Rex_ and _After Indominus Rex_. Claire spent most of the forty minute session politely nodding while this booksmart jackass enjoyed the sound of his own voice. Afterwards, she called Simon's brother, the new CEO of Masrani, from the parking lot and told him that she did her due diligence but if he asked her to go back to that office again, he could type up her resignation letter himself.

 

"Are you really seeing a therapist?" Karen asks later when Claire is helping her dry the dishes, so much of their mother in her tone that Claire feels like she's talking to a ghost.

 

"Sure."

 

Karen remains unconvinced. Then again, Karen is not an idiot.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

Claire calls him in the middle of the night before she realizes it's the middle of the night, her body still on island time all these weeks later (that's a lie, she called him because she needed to hear something solid and Owen was the first person she could think of, which probably says more about him than she wants to think about it in the middle of the night). She expects his voice to be groggy and irritable, but what she gets is out of breath panting ( _did he get a dog?_ and then a second horrifying thought: _is he having sex right now?_ ) and she's about to hang up and go stick her head in an oven when she hears, "Claire?" amidst so much static that it feels like he's talking to her from space. A second later, there's a car horn and Claire realizes that the static must be wind in the background.

 

"Sorry to call so late," Claire says stupidly because there is no good reason for any of this. It feels like she's been caught making an obscene call to a 911 operator. "Did I wake you?"

 

"Out for a run," he says in bursts. "What's up?"

 

"You went for a run at four in the morning?"

 

"I'm an early riser," Owen lies like she doesn't know firsthand about his penchant for spending half the morning in bed if he can help it. Every other word he says sounds very far away. Claire bets that he couldn't sleep either. But, unlike her, Owen is usually spurned to action when he gets nightmares, like if he keeps moving, he'll be able to outrun his thoughts. "What's going on? Are you okay?"

 

"Yes. Yes, I'm fine. Sorry, this was…stupid. I shouldn't have called."

 

"But you did so what's up?"

 

"Nothing. It's fine. I'll, uh, talk to you later, Owen."

 

"Or you could talk to me now."

 

"Good night? Morning?" Claire stammers, slapping her forehead with her free hand. She used to manage twenty thousand visitors a day and now she can't even get through a phone call without tripping over her words like she's on stilts. "Uh, good morning. Have a good jog."

 

Twenty minutes later, her doorbell rings and there's Owen through the peephole, looking like he just went for a swim, his breathing not quite back to normal when she opens the door to find him checking his pulse. Claire shouldn't be surprised to see him – she's sure she sounded like a nutjob when they spoke earlier – but it catches her off guard nevertheless.

 

"Hey, I was in the neighborhood."

 

"Don't you run near the monuments?"

 

"I'm expanding my horizons," Owen shrugs, holding onto the doorframe while he stretches his quads. "Can I come in?"

 

Claire wordlessly holds the door open to let him enter. He heads straight for her fridge, unable to stop himself from commenting on her choice of beverages ("Jesus, who even drinks spritzers anymore?") before pulling out two bottles of Evian. He hands her one and practically finishes his own in two gulps.

 

"When I called earlier, I didn't mean come over."

 

"I don't know what you meant. You hung up too fast," Owen reminds her, dropping down onto a kitchen stool. He tosses the bottle into the trash like a free throw, raising his arms and making mock crowd cheering sounds. It's comforting to see that he can still make himself at home anywhere.

 

"I didn't mean to call you."

 

"So you butt-dialed me at 4am? Doubtful." Less than a second later, Owen whips his head around like one of this raptors to stare straight at her, his eyes illuminating from some come-to-Jesus moment that Claire isn't aware of yet. "Please tell me this is _a booty call_?"

 

If Claire rolled her eyes any harder, they'd be expelled from their orbits and dancing around her immaculate hardwood floor. Owen is laughing so hard he might as well be that leaked Channing Tatum email come to life. (Claire had a lot of time to catch up on pop culture during that first week after they came back from the island in between soaking up every bit of news coverage about Isla Nublar and avoiding everyone on the planet who was not on Isla Nublar, which worked nicely because everyone involved in the tragedy was also avoiding other human beings at the time.)

 

Claire chews on her bottom lip as she walks the length of the kitchen island, the plastic bottle cracking and bending under the pressure of her fingers before she finally blurts out, "My sister thinks I should talk to someone."

 

"Sounds reasonable."

 

"But I can't exactly talk to a therapist about something that is a _theoretical_. How could they possibly understand?"

 

Owen scratches his head. "So you want to talk to _me_?"

 

"I don't know."

 

"Didn't you tell me to get lost—"

 

"No," Claire corrects, holding up her index finger to stop him. "I said I needed _space_. All the books say you shouldn't make any big decisions after you've been through a trauma."

 

"Hmm, I remember it more like you quoting _Speed_ and then kicking me out of bed."

 

" _Speed_ is a seminal classic with intricacies beyond—"

 

"I'm never going to know how McDreamy dies, you know?"

 

"That's an exaggeration. We live in the internet age, Owen! There are clips on youtube—"

 

"Of weird music videos set to The Fray, Claire! _The Fray!_ That is hardly the same thing as watching it happen _as it's happening!_ "

 

Claire can feel the start of a headache building between her eyes as this conversation rapidly veers off the rails and into the face of a cliff. She takes a deep breath and tries again. "If you're going to treat this like a joke then—"

 

"I'm not," Owen promises, holding up his hands. "I just want to make sure that you've got enough space."

 

The atmosphere turns very serious all at once and it feels a little like they're suffocating under the weight of all that hasn't been said yet. She is very good at ignoring the obvious ( _you just went and_ made _a new dinosaur?_ ) so Claire tries not to hear the hurt in his voice, looking anywhere but at him. She really has to hand it to her maid – the counters are so spotless that they could probably build computer chips in her condo.

 

"Are you going to help me with this or not?"

 

"You know I'd help you with anything," Owen says. His face is too earnest. It feels like a vice around her chest that is slowly squeezing in from both sides, the only proof that she has a heart the inevitable explosion. He clears his throat. "So do you want to do this now or…"

 

"You kind of smell like a distillery."

 

"I may have had a drink or two."

 

"It's coming out of your pores," she comments. "Are _you_ okay?"

 

"Always," Owen says with a megawatt smile, knocking on the wooden cabinets at the base of the breakfast bar twice before jumping up to his feet. Claire follows him to the door as he says, "All right. How about tomorrow around seven at my office?"

 

"Fine."

 

At the doorway, he stops and looks back at her. "Just to be clear, I mean here because, you know, my office is Barry's mom's basement so…"

 

"Got it the first time, Owen."

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

Dear [INSERT NAME OF BEREAVED HERE],

 

 

On behalf of The Masrani Corporation, please accept my deepest sympathy and sincere condolences for your loss. Our thoughts are with you and your family always. If we can be of any help during this exceptionally difficult time, please do not hesitate to give our office a call at your convenience.

 

 

Sincerely yours,

 

Claire Dearing  
Park Operations Manager, Jurassic World  
Masrani Corporation

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

The thing that she can appreciate about Owen is his ability to read a room most of the time. He is what you need him to be when you need him to be it. All of his semi-annual evaluations read _adaptable_ first and foremost, which is an important characteristic to have when you're trying to train a bunch of unpredictable creatures. But where there is a yin, there must be a yang. When Owen misses the point, he misses it so completely that it might as well be a mirage.

 

( _what kind of a man shows up to a date in board shorts?_ )

 

Case in point: Owen arrives at her condo dressed like Larry David's love child with Steve Jobs. The only thing that is missing from the results of his google image search of "respectable therapist" is probably a pipe and a leather bound legal pad.

 

"I knew I shouldn't have brought it up," Claire says with a glare, already halfway to slamming the door in his face.

 

"Ice breaker! Come on, it's a little funny!" Owen insists before going to his backup plan of a dozen cupcakes from Baked & Wired. Claire would let Michael Myers (the fictional killer, not the _SNL_ personality – though also the personality if he brought her some dirty chai cupcakes) into her home for those babies. It's her Achilles heel and he knows her well enough to exploit it. She supposes that earns him points from his deficit of a thousand.

 

"So…what's going on?" he asks after she has poured them each a glass of full-bodied Chianti.

 

"I can't take you seriously when you look like the guy from _The Nanny_."

 

Owen rolls his eyes like _she's_ the one who is being ridiculous, putting down his drink to take off the dumb black turtleneck and reveal an even more distracting black wifebeater.

 

"Better?"

 

And it is, of course, most decidedly not.

 

"I'm not asking you to be my therapist, you know?" Claire confirms, rubbing at the scar on her left wrist from where the flaming phosphorous dripped on her. It's only noticeable up close, but if she closes her eyes, Claire can still feel the burn deep within the muscle. "There are actual qualified human beings who do that for a living."

 

"Nice thing to mention _after_ I spent twenty bucks on a turtleneck I will never wear again," Owen laughs before becoming serious again. "What are you asking me then?"

 

"I don't know. This was a bad idea."

 

"It's not your fault, you know."

 

And maybe that's what she needs to hear, but when Claire says, "I know," what she really means is _you were never a liar before_.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

Zara's funeral is on the second Saturday after the tragedy. The company begs her to reconsider attending, throwing around words like "liability" and "class action" like that means more to Claire than this woman being her personal assistant for five years. The drive from D.C. to Philly is a little less than three hours and Claire doesn't even have to ask for Owen to offer to go with her. Zach and Gray ask to come along; Claire is pretty sure there's some degree of survivor's guilt there so she tells them it is a good idea. In the end, they pile into the back of Karen's SUV and set out on the most depressing road trip she has ever been on, the first hour silent except for a decidedly incongruous array of Top 40s hits playing on the radio. But then Gray talks about some license plate game his friend Benji told him about and Zach calls him an idiot and the rest of the drive is filled with the amazingly normal banter of two brothers and their increasingly frustrated mother.

 

It starts raining somewhere along I-95 and doesn't stop for the rest of the drive, the drops coming down like softballs by the time they arrive at the cemetery. Claire keeps her sunglasses on for the entire ceremony and squeezes Owen's hand the whole time. It's a wonder he has any feeling left afterwards, but if his fingers have gone numb, he certainly doesn't complain about it.

 

Zara's sister reads something from _Winnie-the-Pooh_ , her words barely understandable between the heaving sobs until finally someone is kind enough to put the poor girl out of her misery and lead her away from the casket. In the back of her mind, Claire briefly wonders what Karen would've read if she had been a second out of step. Her sister must be thinking the same thing because she glances over at that exact moment and holds her gaze for a moment before turning back to the proceedings.

 

Claire does not go over to the Young family afterwards to pay her respects in person. She's not sure there are any words in the English language to make her presence there comforting.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

It's not a date when she invites Owen over because Claire picks up wings on her way home from work and there is absolutely no way to ever make eating wings sexy. He shows up ten minutes late because he is constitutionally incapable of telling time, but makes up for it by bringing the beer.

 

"I DVRed it," Claire finally admits, dropping two coasters down on her coffee table.

 

He looks confused at first, but as she scrolls through her recorded shows, Owen's mouth splits into one of those cheesy smiles you'd see on a Publisher's Clearinghouse winner's face. It's absolutely ridiculous how happy he looks in that moment and yet Claire kind of wishes she could capture it in a bottle.

 

"I might cry," he warns her.

 

"That's because you're an idiot," she says, grabbing a chicken wing.

 

"You're not better than The Dempsey!" Owen shoots back, affronted.

 

" _The_ Dempsey? He's not Prince—"

 

Owen shushes her as the abbreviated opening credits start to play and _God, she's missed him_. The realization hits hard and it hits fast, like the wind has suddenly blown the piece of tarp off her heart and now she sees that there's this massive hole in there.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

The luxury of being the person to outrun the most vicious carnivore on the planet is that no one bothers to question her when she decides to take an afternoon off just because she can. Claire is heading to the lobby when she runs into Lowery in the elevator. He's got a Big Gulp in one hand and a tablet in the other when the door opens at Claire's floor. They haven't spoken since she threatened his manhood over the walkie-talkie, but Claire suspects he is partially responsible for her fame as T. Rex Whisperer.

 

"They asked me to work on the video game," Lowery reports, jabbing at the basement button repeatedly with his index finger.

 

"Explains the t-shirt," Claire comments, gesturing at the GameStop logo across his chest. "Are you going to do it?"

 

"Probably. The change in perspective might be nice. Cathartic, even."

 

"I don't know if we're allowed that." It's probably the most honest thing Claire has said in a long time.

 

"We didn't make him, you know?" Lowery says, lowering his eyes to the black tiled floor. "Hell, we didn't even set him loose really."

 

Claire shakes her head. "You sound like the woman who sued McDonald's for burning herself with hot coffee. You don't need a warning on your styrofoam cup to know it's hot! It's fucking hot! What did we think that thing was going to do? Stupid human tricks for the audience?"

 

"If we didn't do it, someone else would have," he replies weakly and maybe that is true but it doesn't make Claire feel any better. Are they less awful because they knew what they were doing or are they bigger monsters because they went along with it anyway?

 

The elevator dings as the lobby sign lights up overhead. When the doors start to open, Claire turns to Lowery and says, "We were wrong, but it counts for something that you stayed back there and tried to fix it."

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

"So you're running a lot," Claire says absently when they meet at the Jamba Juice a block away from her apartment. It's the third time this week that Owen has been pounding the pavement when she called, which is normal behavior if you're training for a marathon or the Olympics but since he's doing neither, it seems like something she should bring up.

 

"Is that a problem?"

 

"You tell me." Her tone is neutral as the woman at the counter hands Claire her Mango-A-Go-Go smoothie.

 

"I like running," Owen says, taking a big slurp of his Razzmatazz before holding the door opening for her. "It makes me feel alive."

 

"You sound like a Brooks tagline."

 

"In the comic books, there's this guy, The Flash, whose power is basically to run really fast, sometimes so fast that he becomes part of the speed force. Once he's in that, everything around him is a blur and he can sort of just drift in and out of different points in time."

 

"Is that what you're trying to do? Go back in time?"

 

Owen grins. "Nice thought, huh?"

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

The new Masrani Corp business model involves playing up what they already have. Gone are the days when they have to build bigger and badder attractions to bring the people in. If anything, the Isla Nublar debacle taught them that there is no need to fix what isn't already broken.

 

Off her baffled look, Simon's brother explains, "You have Godzilla vs Mothra and Godzilla vs Ghidorah and Godzilla vs Destroyah and it's all great, but what's the common thread here?"

 

Claire stares at him blankly.

 

"Godzilla!" the InGen scientist chimes in helpfully.

 

"That's right! Godzilla!" he continues. "We don't need to reinvent the wheel. That was our mistake! The Tyrannosaurus Rex will always be the leader of the dinosaur kingdom!"

 

"So no more genetic hybrids?" Claire asks hopefully.

 

"Well…no," Mr. Masrani continues, somewhat deflated that Claire isn't following along with his train of thought. "We still need new attractions. What else are the people going to tweet about? But we're not going to make the same mistakes again. We're not going to go as big next time."

 

All the board members turn to look at Claire expectantly like she should be doing a cheer and congratulating them on their stellar ability to _miss the point completely_. There's a part of her brain that is reminding her that this is going to happen no matter what so maybe she can temper the disastrous outcome with her involvement like a mole on the inside. But the part of her that can process that the deaths of five thousand people weigh heavier than a really unfortunate reference on her CV is silently screaming, the bile already working its way up her esophagus faster than she can swallow it down.

 

"So what do you think?" the new CEO asks. His bone structure is so similar to Simon's that if Claire were to look really quickly, she'd think it was Simon all along. But upon closer inspection, his face is missing that joyous spark that Hammond saw when he named Simon his successor.

 

"I'm sure the focus groups will love it, but you know that I quit, right?"

 

Her hands are bloody enough.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

When she tells them that Masrani is finally behind her, Karen insists that they have to celebrate so Claire takes Owen to her sister's for the first time since he stopped being her plus one to anything. From the Mitchell family reaction you'd guess that she had brought the Pope for dinner. Karen is one stern look away from setting out the good china for Papa John's and Rocky Road. If Claire had any doubts that her nephews loved Owen more than her, this would do nothing to quell her fears. Gray seems to talk a mile a minute the moment Owen walks through the door, a month's worth of experiences distilled into a rapid fire run on sentence.

 

" _Breathe_ ," Owen has to say once or twice, his hand up like Gray is just another raptor.

 

Even Zach's normally noncommittal answers become polysyllabic around Owen as he tells him in hushed tones about the pseudo-celebrity status he's achieved at school after dino-gate. When Claire looks at her sister, Karen's relief that her boys can get past this – can be _normal_ again – is almost palpable. It's really just terrible for Claire's resolve.

 

"You're spending time with Owen again," her sister remarks smugly when she recruits Claire to help carry the one box of pizza in as if Karen had a direct hand in making whatever is happening between Claire and Owen happen.

 

"Easy, Cujo. It's not what you think."

 

"You don't know what I think."

 

Claire laughs incredulously. "I'm sorry, but did I miss the day that you got your SAG card?"

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

On the four month anniversary mark of the worst day of Claire's life, _60 Minutes_ does a special on Jurassic World spanning its humble beginnings as this crazy, but well meaning, idea that John Hammond had to history proving time and time again that it is the ultimate representation of man's folly and misunderstanding of his place in the natural order of things. Objectively speaking, it is very well produced and Lesley Stahl certainly gives it the gravitas that it deserves.

 

Subjectively, the earlier parts are easy enough to watch, but once it gets to The Masrani Corporation's acquisition of Hammond Incorporated, the golf ball lodged in Claire's throat seems to expand exponentially. They cut to old stock footage of Simon at the first press conference announcing Jurassic World, idealism saturating every word until it feels like the true monster is whoever doesn't believe this is a good thing. Claire doesn't realize how hard she is holding onto her wine glass until it shatters in her hand, red mixing with red as if this would end in any other fashion. She doesn't know what possesses her to grab her car keys, but the next thing Claire knows, she's knocking on the front door of Barry's mother's brownstone like some sort of hooded miscreant.

 

"Ms. Dearing," he greets in surprise when he finally opens the door.

 

"Barry," she says, pulling down her hood, "we almost got eaten together. I think you can call me Claire. Is Owen here?"

 

"Of course," he says, motioning for her to come in. Barry leads her down a long hallway and down a set of stairs to the basement. Owen is watching the same special when Barry announces that he has a visitor, tipping an imaginary hat in Claire's direction before taking the stairs up two at a time.

 

"Hi," Claire says stupidly, shoving her hands into the large pocket of her old Georgetown hoodie for lack of better options.

 

"Hey," Owen says, leaping up from the La-Z-Boy like it's on fire. His hand goes up in a half wave before he seems to realize that he is waving at a person who is four feet away from him. "Were you watching this thing?"

 

"Some of it," she answers.

 

"It was balanced, I guess…"

 

"I don't want space," Claire blurts out. She had imagined this going a little more elegantly when she was breaking a dozen traffic laws to get here, but every speech she could have possibly thought up on the drive over has suddenly fizzled out of her brain and all she's left with is: "I wanted you to tell me that it was okay, but I didn't want you tell me it was okay."

 

"I don't know how to do that."

 

"I know. It's okay. No one does. I think I needed to forgive myself."

 

"And did you?"

 

"I'm getting there," she answers because that's the best she's got. "But that's not why I'm here. I'm here because I needed to tell you that I fucked up and I'm sorry and I miss you."

 

"What about the wise words of Sandra Bullock?"

 

Claire shakes her head. "She probably never got chased by dinosaurs."

 

"I mean, she could have," he says, stepping over a duffel bag to reach her. "You might be underestimating her."

 

"She _did_ save a bus full of people in the most procrastinatory city in the United States."

 

"I don't think that's a word." Owen grins, lopsided and stupid and Claire really thinks that her heart might burst when he leans in and kisses her, his heart beating a thousand beats per minute like it has finally caught up to the speed force.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
